Feb. 8 (UPI) —<\/span> Children who are male or Black American and those who are obese are at higher risk for severe COVID-19 and a potentially life-threatening complication called MIS-C, a study published Tuesday by JAMA Network Open found.<\/p>\n Male children are 37% more likely to develop serious illness following coronavirus infection, while Black American youths have a 25% higher risk, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n All obese children, meaning they are severely overweight, are 19% more likely to experience severe COVID-19, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “Our objective was to provide a detailed clinical characterization of the largest cohort of U.S. pediatric [COVID-19] cases to date,” wrote the researchers, who represented multiple academic hospitals across the country.\n<\/p>\n The findings cover the period during which the Delta variant was the predominant one in circulation in the United States, they said.<\/p>\n Delta was overtaken by the Omicron variant, which may cause more serious illness in children, in December, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n The study tracked the health of nearly 1.1 million children and teens ages 19 years and younger who were tested for COVID-19 from the start of the pandemic in March 2020 through September of last year.\n<\/p>\n Just over 167,000, or about 16%, of those included in the analysis tested positive for the virus and more than 10,000, or 6%, of them were hospitalized as a result, the researchers said.<\/p>\n Of the hospitalized children and teens, 1,423, or 14%, were considered to have severe COVID-19 because of needing ventilator support and other aggressive treatments to maintain breathing, the data showed.<\/p>\n One percent of the hospitalized young people died from the virus, according to the researchers.\n<\/p>\n Based on the analysis, males are nearly 60% more likely to develop a complication of COVID-19 called MIS-C, or multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, the researchers said.<\/p>\n In MIS-C, different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes and gastrointestinal tract, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n Similar to Kawasaki disease, the condition can be fatal, though it resolves in most cases with treatment, the agency says.<\/p>\n Black-American children are 44% more likely to develop MIS-C, while children age 12 years and younger are 81% more likely to do so, the data showed.<\/p>\n Obese children have a 76% higher risk for MIS-C from COVID-19, the researchers said.<\/p>\n Previous studies have found that children, particularly teens, with chronic health conditions, such as diabetes and obesity, are more likely to develop serious illness after infection.\n<\/p>\n “This report provides preliminary data on differences among children infected with [the virus] in the era prior to Delta variant dominance compared with those in the Delta era, and we found a similar hospitalization rate,” the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n “That odds for severe versus moderate disease decreased during the Delta era … may reflect that more previously healthy children were hospitalized in the Delta era,” they said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1\/5 About 14% of children hospitalized with COVID-19 develop potentially life-threatening symptoms, according to a new study. File Photo by John Angelillo\/UPI | License Photo Feb. 8 (UPI) — Children who are male or Black American and those who are obese are at higher risk for severe COVID-19 and a potentially life-threatening complication called MIS-C, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":981932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1540,94,174,261,1497,177,1178,4568,425,1227,28],"class_list":["post-981931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-american","tag-black","tag-children","tag-covid19","tag-face","tag-higher","tag-male","tag-obese","tag-risk","tag-severe","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
1\/5<\/p>\n
![\"Study:](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Study-Male-Black-American-and-obese-children-face-higher-risk-for-severe-COVID-19.jpg\" "\\"Study:")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
About 14% of children hospitalized with COVID-19 develop potentially life-threatening symptoms, according to a new study. File Photo by John Angelillo\/UPI | License Photo<\/div>\n\n